1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improvement in a camera designed so as to have a suitable rapid picture-taking performance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Almost all conventional automatic focusing cameras have been designed to perform an exposure operation in such a manner that the distance to an object is measured upon the initial half stroke of a shutter release operation (the first stroke of a release button), a lens is driven upon the next half stroke of the shutter release button (second stroke) to be focused, and the shutter is thereafter opened to effect exposure. Such cameras have a drawback in that a substantially long time is required for driving the lens from the second stroke release operation to the start of actual photographing, and a desired rapid picture-taking performance cannot be achieved. A camera which performs distance measurement and subsequent lens driving based on the measurement upon the first stroke of a shutter release operation and opens the shutter upon the second stroke to effect exposure has therefore been proposed.
However, a distance measurement field is fixed in these conventional cameras, and no means has been devised to apply this distance measurement/exposure process to cameras capable of changing between a plurality of distance measurement fields and a single distance measurement field. Also, with respect to the photometry field, no rapid picture-taking cameras have been proposed by considering divided photometry areas and a central photometry area. Also, no rapid picture-taking cameras have been proposed by considering a red-eye-effect reducing illumination used in cameras lately put on the market.